Australian net limitations

["E. ALLEN SMITH" <EALLENSMITH@ocelot.Rutgers.EDU>]

	This may have some relevance to the Australian crypto regulation
thread a while back.
	-Allen

From:	IN%"rre@weber.ucsd.edu" 12-FEB-1996 23:51:48.10

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Date: Sun, 11 Feb 1996 18:28:44 -0800
From: madanmohan rao <rao@IGC.APC.ORG>
To: "Multiple recipients of list india-gii@cpsr.org"
     <errors@snyside.sunnyside.com>
Subject: Internet news about Asia, India

Hello folks -
 
     Here are excerpts from this week's edition of my column,
"International Internet NewsClips." The full version plus
archives are at MecklerMedia's Internet World site
(http://www.iworld.com/netday/NATW.html). You can also find my
reviews of books on Internet-related subjects at this site.
     Comments, feedback, etc. most welcome as always.
                                                      - madan
______________________________________________________________
  Madanmohan Rao (rao@igc.org), Communications Consultant, 
     United Nations Inter Press Service bureau.
--------------------------------------------------------------
 
[...]

Internet Legislation To Be Formulated In Australia
--------------------------------------------------
1996 is probably going to be a watershed year in Australian
Internet history. Decisions are going to be made about what is
and is not allowable on-line. Concerned users will have a chance
to express their opinions to the Australian Broadcasting
Association's On-line Services Investigation, by February 16. 
The ABA's is the second similar investigation in the last six
months. A Senate report last November argued that it should be an
offence to "transmit, obtain possession of, demonstrate,
advertise or request the transmission of material equivalent to
RC (refused classification), R or X categories." But this would
mean that the on-line world would be restricted by tighter
standards than the off-line world. The ABA has issued a
comprehensive Issues Paper for its inquiry (http://www.dca.gov.
au/aba/olsissue.htm). Available since December, the paper deals
with the concepts of codes of practice, the development of a
representative industry body, the establishment of an independent
complaints-handling body and other mechanisms for controlling
access in the on-line environment. It also looks at consumer and
Australian content issues on the Net, provides a handy guideline
to censorship classification, and a summary of the findings of
the Office of Film and Literature Classification's own informal
search of the Net - 27 hours of porn hunting yielded the
discovery that "restricted and refused classification material
was difficult to find, at times difficult to download, and was
more prevalent on Usenet newsgroup files than on the World Wide
Web." The ABA accepts submissions by e-mail (online@aba.gov.au).
(Sydney Morning Herald; February 6, 1996)
 
Nations See Internet As Cultural, Political, Economic Threat
------------------------------------------------------------
Nations are discovering that data sent via the Internet can be
every bit as threatening to a country's laws or its culture as
the armies of yesteryear. "Nation states are trying to assert
themselves with increasing aggression into cyberspace," said
Electronic Frontier Foundation's John Perry Barlow, at the World
Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It's not just cultural or
social sovereignty that governments worry about. The power to tax
is also being eroded by the increase in economic transactions
that take place over the Internet, some of it encrypted so that
prying eyes of the tax department could not read them. "You can't
control it, it's uncontrollable," said MIT's Nicholas Negroponte.
"If someone tells you that you can, they are probably smoking
pot."
(Toronto Globe and Mail; February 3, 1996)